Hundreds of thousands scheduled to fly from our airports this Christmas - and 24,000 are heading straight to Yorkshire

Between December 21-25 this year, 69,330,024 people around the world will be taking to the skies, heading home to their families in time for Christmas Day.
The map of Christmas flightsThe map of Christmas flights
The map of Christmas flights

Among them are nurses, soldiers, family and friends and businesspeople flying thousands of miles to spend the holidays with their loved ones.

Of those, 1.8 million will be heading to the UK making it the 8th busiest country for Christmas air travel.

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London Heathrow is set to be the busiest airport at Christmas with currently 597,113 people scheduled to be flying in just before the big day. This is then followed by Gatwick with 287,540 arrivals.

Looking closer at Leeds Bradford, Doncaster/Sheffield and Humberside Airport - the study reveals that 24,812 are heading straight for Yorkshire.

Leeds Bradford Airport is the busiest in the region with 17,268 people scheduled to land and 17,188 to be depart. Doncaster/Sheffield see's 6,465 people landing on Yorkshire soil just before Christmas too.

When breaking this down by dates - December 21 is the busiest day with 53 flights scheduled to be arriving.

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Leeds Bradford is number 582 on the worlds busiest airport at Christmas list as Beijing International tops it with 843,700 people scheduled to be flying in.

Overall, 10,888 flights to the UK are scheduled between the dates of December 21-25 with 8,163 of those coming in from international countries predominately Spain, the USA and Germany.

World wide data

Worldwide, 466,897 flights are scheduled to be in the skies taking nearly 70 million people home to their familes.

When breaking this down by dates, the eve of Christmas Eve is the busiest day with 99,948 flights transporting 15,000,927 passengers worldwide. Christmas Eve see’s 13.7 million travelling in the sky and even Christmas Day is almost as hectic.

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Beijing International tops the list as the worlds busiest city at Christmas with 843,734 people flying into the airport between 21st-25th December and 844,657 departing.

This is then followed by Dubai and Atlanta. London Heathrow is the UK’s busiest airport, and 11th on the world busiest list.

Despite more planes flying into California International - more people are heading in and out of Beijing making it the most hectic airport to be stuck at this festive period.

Dan Mountain, CEO at Buyagift said “We understand giving loved ones something special at Christmas is an essential part of the festive season but spending time with our nearest and dearest is priceless.’’

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‘’We wanted to visualise just how important this is around the world, showing just what the sky will look like 5 days head of Christmas as everyone heads home to be with their loved ones for the most magical time of the year. “